Life + Simplicity: The Lost Art of Creating Personal Relationships

It may not be something you've thought about or recognized because it's so engrained into our daily lives, but today's culture has forgotten how to create personal relationships. We can sit here and contemplate the reasons why - blame it on technology, cultural shifts, our ever-growing anxiety to be in public...

Let's simply take a step back, and take a break. Take a break from your homework that you do all day, take a break from your Netflix binge, and take a break from your phone, and instead spend that time with someone you care about or maybe someone you want to care about, but just "haven't had the time."

You want to know the trick to having an effective moment with someone else? Listening and responding and doing it all over again.

Seems so rudimentary, but when was the last time you actually did it?

The moment after winning a SEC football game

A crucial part in living more with less is committing yourself to something more important, even if that means doing less things, just like when we talked about minimizing your schedule. If you aren't rushed for coffee or a manicure, then you'll enjoy the time so much more with the other person because you won't be worried about the clock.

But I get it, you're in college, you're involved in meetings and have tons of friends who want to hang out all the time, so how are you supposed to say no if it may seem like there's no viable reason? When someone asks to spend time with you but you know it won't be for the quality time you want to spend with them, it's simple enough to just say, "I would love to do (fill in the blank) with you! But would (this day) work better?" You don't have to explain yourself to everyone, but you also need to be considerate.

In addition, get rid of the distractions. I was watching this video about why millennials are the way they are. And at first I was thinking to myself, "Here we go again. Another stereotypical millennial rant." But after the video automatically started playing on Facebook, I got really interested in it and actually watched all 15 minutes (maybe you'll be as intrigued as I was). The speaker mentions that we are constantly looking for attention and affirmation, and one of the ways we see that is when there are a group of friends at dinner and all of them have their phone out on the table, looking at it. And the reason they're looking at it is because they want to be wanted by someone, but they're already spending time with people who already want to be with them. And soon you have a table full of people looking at their phone instead of conversing with one another, and they're creating relationships with text messaging or Tinder or Snapchat instead of the person sitting less than a foot away from them.

How crazy does that sound??

So, in conclusion, when you're spending time with people, rid yourself of other distractions such as a television or a cell phone, so that you can actually spend some quality time with them and create a personal relationship.

After I started putting my phone away when I was out in public, I was amazed at how responsive the people were that I was with. They saw that I was actually giving them my full attention and listening to what they had to say, and both of us seemed happier by the end.

I challenge you to do the same: start committing time towards other people with intention rather than wading through life with one person after the next.



(Link for the video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SP0v6nAwos